KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 — The family of MH370 pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah has come out to rubbish allegations he crashed the plane to collect on insurance money, saying the experienced aviator did not even possess a life insurance policy.

Brother-in-law Asuad Khan told Australian broadcaster ABC News that Zaharie’s image has been tarnished by inaccurate statements and speculation, particularly news reports that the pilot had suicidal tendencies. 

Speaking on behalf of his sister and Zaharie’s wife, Faizah Khan, Asuad believed the 53-year-old was being made a “scapegoat” by the authorities, who have refocused their investigations into the backgrounds of all the 239 people on board the Boeing 777 aircraft that mysteriously disappeared on March 8.

“Because if you say that he wanted to [commit] suicide in the Indian Ocean, I say prove it. If he wanted to (commit) suicide he wouldn’t — he would want to kill 238 people with him? Why would he be so stupid? He is not,” Asuad said on the network’s current affairs programme, Four Corners.

“He was not suicidal. We enjoy our life to the fullest because life only happens once. If you are talking about life insurance he didn’t have one. Trust me, check. He didn’t have one. He didn’t believe in it so why would he want to (commit) suicide?” he said.

“Why would a person in their right mind want to suicide? He had a good life. He had a lot of money, and he loved his daughter very much,” Asuad had said.

Malaysia’s police are still looking at the possibility of a hijack, terrorism or even “pilot suicide” after the passenger jetliner was shown to have veered off-course towards the remote waters of the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles away from the plane’s original flight path to Beijing, but was “deliberately” done so.

According to reports, the police have repeatedly questioned the families of Zaharie and seized a flight simulator hand-built to mimic that of the Boeing 777-200ER from the captain’s house. The families of his co-pilot Fariq Ab Hamid and other cabin crew have also been questioned but no evidence has emerged to implicate anyone.

To date the investigators have recorded statements from 311 people, including foreigners.

Asuad said Zaharie wife was frantic when she discovered from the news that the plane her husband was flying did not reach its destination.

“The first person she called was me. When she called me, my wife could hear that she was crying like hell. I can’t even understand what she’s saying. I said, ‘hold on, hold on’.

“To my thinking somebody has died if she cries like that. I said ‘just be patient, wait for them to call you’,” Asuad said, relating his conversation with his sister adding that Faizah had attempted to call Zaharie’s mobile phone but the call was redirected to voicemail.

According to Asuad, Zaharie was a “sane” person, “a family man” and “an avid cook” as well as  an “aviation geek”, on top of being very handy around the house.

“He’s a DIY (do-it-yourself) person. He likes to repair a lot of things by himself at home. On that day, my sister told me he was repairing the door for the bathroom if I’m not mistaken,” he said.

“He’s crazy about his job,” he said.

“He even had those little remote control (RC) planes, the helicopter and the plane. I kept asking him, ‘You have been flying every day and yet during your off day you still fly this RC? Are you crazy or what?’ And then he would just laugh,” related Asuad.

He added that Faizah is not coping well with the media attention.

“I can see that. I was there for a week, I’m looking at her, I’m seeing that she’s breaking, totally breaking,” he said

The jetliner carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members went missing more than two months ago after leaving Malaysian shores, resulting in the largest international search mission the world has seen in the history of aviation disasters.

Despite the massive multinational hunt in the Indian Ocean, no trace of the missing Boeing 777 has been found.